Scotch Tape
by piratesmiley
Summary: J/D. "It wasn’t necessary for Ms. Press Secretary Extraordinaire to rain all over Josh and Donna’s Denial Parade."


A/N: My own version of the Gaza debacle, with a little extra angst, and an altered timeline.

Spoilers: The end of the fifth season/beginning of the sixth.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fringe.

* * *

Another fight. Josh rubs his head; Donna knocks on the door and is ready to pretend like she and the whole rest of the bullpen didn't hear anything, but he asks her a question that she's been waiting for for months now and she has to answer.

"Why are we together?"

She can tell by his voice – even though he's refusing to look at her – that he really wants to know.

"Attraction. Convenience. Politics."

She says 'politics' like it's a dirty word, but she doesn't mean it that way. Donna loves politics, but relationships made with legs of political one-upping _are_ dirty, in the worst sense of the word.

He looks up at her, and his eyes are staggering. Wide, confused, hurt, weary. "Yeah," like he wants to cry but can't. "I'm sick of it."

_This isn't how it's supposed to go…_

She nods, smiles a smile that really isn't a smile, and relays her message.

That was two days before Gaza.

-

One day before, CJ cracks her whip of reality. Donna whole-heartedly admits that she does it with style, but maintains that she didn't need to hear it. It wasn't necessary for Ms. Press Secretary Extraordinaire to rain all over Josh and Donna's Denial Parade.

It hurt. It stung like middle school, gym class, a dodge-ball to the face. She just wasn't paying close enough attention, dreaming about something else entirely, and so it smacked her full on.

The truth is, Donna could argue her side all day long. But she's bone-tired suddenly, and the fight isn't worth the effort now that she realizes what CJ said is true.

-

She's going to miss him. But apparently that's part of the problem.

"I'm leaving now."

"That's not true."

"It's not?"

"Now just passed. You said 'now' five seconds ago, but now already happened. Now is gone." He says it like it's excusing her from leaving. _You missed your flight. Sorry._

And suddenly, she's frustrated, overly so, and she snaps. "No, Joshua. Now is now, and now, and now, forever. _I'm_ gone."  
-

It is the day Donna leaves for Gaza, and Josh is angry, so Josh forgets her in the way he's patented—Amy.

Two days more: barely getting by at work, angry sex at home. She was always out before dawn, so Josh got to experience the joys of waking up alone, just like every other day of his life.

Not that it would be different, he argues with himself, if Donna was here, home. She would go to her house and he would go to his and Amy would probably show up and pretend that they liked each other even the tiniest bit, and that's it.

He walks into the bullpen, looks at the TV screen. And forgets everything.

-

Amy's just missed him, in more ways than one, but she doesn't know, so there's still some semblance of a smile on her face. The gang is coming out of staff, sans Josh, with grim faces. Donna is gone, and the new temp is useless as far as Amy's concerned. She finally notices the news. It takes her sixty seconds to decide to go on a hunt.

She weaves in and out of offices, expecting to find an angry Josh, a pissed-off, war-ready Josh. Those were her expectations. What she gets instead is a whole lot of nothing. All of her guesses added up did mean something significant, and she would not deny it; but the fact that he's on the first plane out of here adds up to something so polar and wrong that Amy can hardly stand it.

She's done. They're through.

-

Planes move far too slow for Josh's taste.

Worry has become a constant thing, a living, breathing mass of manhandling and yelling. Its Siamese twin is Fright. They have taken what seems to be permanent residence in each of Josh's lungs—tumors making it difficult to breathe. They love it there; he's an easy target.

Finally, finally, finally, he gets there. Finally she allows his heart to shatter. Seriously, honestly? How she could have done this to him—let this happen to herself—he doesn't know. He's angry, blood boiling.

But he watches her as she sleeps and recovers. He starts picking up the pieces, carefully rearranging his priorities and then putting everything back with Scotch tape in their new order. He kisses her forehead and prepares to help her pick up her own pieces as well.


End file.
